Yes CeeDee! I will play as many as I can before I have to deliver the pre and the amps
The speakers are mine Gavin (for my upcoming HT along with a VisiUN to be powered with a BAT VK-6200), this pre is sold and so is are these pair of M2.2s. The guy who owns the preamp (who also bought an identical pair of MkIIIs and a pair of Lamm M1.2 References) is still waiting for his cables and the M2.2s are waiting for their owner to finish his music only multichannel listening room where they'll be used with VR-9s...get this....for REAR duty.
I'm having a blast with this system while I can though by coincidence it is made up of VSA's and Lamm's least expensive products. It's kinda twisted really
Together, they're already way more than any discerning music lover needs. This is trickle down technology at it's best. I highly commend both Albert and Vladimir for always making the best products at any given price point unlike others that intentionally dumb down models to avoid cannibalizing sales of the next one up the ladder.
Toe-in? It's a bit of an optical illusion. The speakers are 9 feet apart and they are toed in about 3 inches each. The 9s are slightly toed in as well. Toe in is a habit acquired by need over the years by most of us because most of us started out with speakers using first order crossovers that have off axis responses that weren't very good. Years ago when I got my first pair of 4th order speakers (Revel F30) I found less toe in was needed to achieve both focus and solid center fill. Same thing when I got my first VRs the VR-4 HSE Gen.IIIs. All VRs will give solid center fill pointing straight ahead up to 9 feet apart. At this distance toe in is really just for achieving the subjectively desired focus which falls anywhere between live which is huge and diffused (toed out or straight ahead) and hyper focused (straight at ya). In a lesser way toe in also affects stage height. Again at this distance adding toe in will drop the height slightly. If I wanted a bit more height back I'd move the speakers a few inches forward. Just enough to raise the stage height but not enough to dip the bass.
Fellow dealers call me the human raytracer because we're always the fastest to set up and tune at shows. They love it because on move-in day that means Keith and I always have time to help them out with their rooms too. Now you see why we get such sweet deals on stuff we don't carry
It's a skill developed from when Keith and I were DJing and setting up actively XO's PA rigs when we were in school. We were forced to optimize systems (our own stacks or rented ones for the really big gigs) for anything from cramped living rooms at house parties to grand ballrooms for debutantes' coming out parties and weddings. The goal was always to optimize vocals on the recordings while allowing the guests dancing to be able to still talk (hence providing ourselves and other blokes better scoring opportunities
) while again giving punch, grunt and drive to get them freaky
In hindsight it really is no different from tuning a home system except that you no longer have control over gain on the XO and no longer have the parametric EQs on hand. These are replaced with elbow grease and imagination. The goal remains to lock in the room/loudspeaker interface so the tonal balance is even and coverage is as wide as possible without sacrificing intimacy. See what I mean about scoring opportunities? I knew my wild oats would amount to at least SOME good someday!
